HEIKE LISS
Lucas Artists Fellow

RESIDENCY DATES :
Aug 3rd 2012 to Aug 19th 2012

PRACTICE : Visual

FROM : USA/Germany

Artist Heike Liss works in a variety of media, including video, photography, drawing, sculpture, site-specific installation and public intervention, exploring and trying to understand the human condition. Her biggest inspiration is everyday life, and the world and the people around her. Heike was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, and has made a living as a bartender, singer, factory worker, PR manager, secretary, radio actor, film extra, cleaning lady, chef, shiatsu therapist, art teacher, trend scout, roller skating cigarette girl, archivist, AIDS/HIV counselor, marketing researcher, graphic designer, sex educator, and portrait photographer in a Polaroid studio. She studied Ethnology and Social Anthropology at the University of Tübingen before attending Mills College, where she received her Master of Fine Arts in 2002. Her award-winning work has been exhibited internationally in museums, galleries and at film festivals. She has also collaborated with choreographer François Verret, musicians Fred Frith, Ellen Fullman, GAW, Patrice Scanlon, Sudhu Tewari and Theresa Wong, multi-media artists Ellen Lake, Nomi Talisman, and Michael Trigilio, painter Soffia Saemudsdottir and poets Lyn Hejinian and Romney Steele. In 2011 she co-founded the dance theater collective this sweet nothing with composer/performer Caroline Penwarden and choreographer/dancer Sonsherée Giles. Their first collaboration was presented to critical acclaim in February 2012 in Oakland, where she lives with her family.